In fact, this has been the summer of my discontent where I rail against the tech drum beat which continues to be deaf to the needs of marketing practitioners’ for practical solutions.

Perhaps because I am a printer’s daughter, I am much more interested in the machinery of marketing than the cool of it all. I am far more passionate about ad tech answering the “Now what” and “So what” questions in the same platform than the algorithm that drives the platform.

Mostly, though I remain aghast at deep the struggle marketers of all stripes are quietly enduring; feeling as though THEY are doing it wrong whilst everyone must be doing it better and more frequently.

Wrong my friends.

My articles in Ad Age in last two months paint a dismal picture of the gap between ad tech and marketers – from SaaS to programmatic buying. I talk about why the precious PESO model doesn’t work. Mostly, I highlight a gulf between ad tech and marketing borne ignorance and fueled by greed.

As 2016 comes to its marketing peak – I remain defiant of an ecosystem that defines itself by what is “tech cool” instead of what is “marketer happy.”

As 2017 comes around – I know our time is at hand because marketing is a trust business. The ad tech “kids” got nothing on us. Time to rise and shine.